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London cab company Addison Lee is to lead a government-backed effort into driverless car research, launching a UK firm into a field dominated by US tech companies.

Addison Lee will lead a consortium including Ford, which has its own autonomous vehicle programme, to explore the potential for unmanned vehicles and ride-sharing services in London.

The Merge Greenwich project, backed by funding from the government's Innovate UK, estimates up to a third of London car journeys could be replaced by self-driving vehicles by 2025, taking up 25 per cent of the city's transport market, worth £3.5bn.

The project will simulate how driverless cars and ride-sharing can operate in London, focused in Greenwich, and develop a plan over 12-months for a driverless transport pilot in the borough.

Addison Lee chief executive Andy Boland told the Telegraph: "Today we will do 30,000 trips in London and all our data and information can be used to simulate demand and supply availability."

Mr Boland said he expected some of Addison Lee's services to be autonomous in London in the near future. "Someone developing autonomous vehicles in California doesn’t mean it will be five years ahead of London soon,", he said, "where we come into it - and Innovate UK's push - is really about propositions for a real-world environment."

Private hire company Addison Lee has increased its innovation efforts as fast-moving tech companies such as Uber have taken hold in London's ride-sharing market. Addison Lee has around 4,800 drivers in London, while Uber has an estimated 40,000.

The UK has lagged behind efforts by US tech giants in driverless car advances, such as Google-owned Waymo which is valued at an estimated $70bn, and ride-sharing companies Uber and Lyft.

Ford will provide the Merge project with its knowledge of developing driverless cars, while Addison Lee will provide data from its commercial fleet. Mr Boland said he believed car manufacturers would "ultimately own and manage the global supply chain" of autonomous vehicles, rather than tech companies.

The US car giant has stated it plans to have its own driverless cars on the roads by 2021, as well as licencing its technology to other manufacturers. It recently partnered with ride-sharing company Lyft in a move to accelerate its efforts to deploy driverless cars.